


Yosuke, Today

by disco_agidyne



Category: Persona 4
Genre: M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-11-10
Updated: 2017-11-10
Packaged: 2019-01-31 15:57:55
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 5,975
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/12685131
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/disco_agidyne/pseuds/disco_agidyne
Summary: "Yosuke kissed me today."





	Yosuke, Today

Yosuke kissed me today.

We were sitting on the school rooftop, and I’d brought a lunch big enough to share. Piece by piece, I was balancing my food on top of his until I bumped his hand and he seethed.

“Ow! Geez…” He muttered before putting on an apologetic smile. “Sorry. Sunburn.”

The back of his hand matched his face and collarbones. With my chopsticks, I held up a piece of kimchi for comparison, feigning a thoughtful hum. Yosuke frowned, lips parted by a question he’d never ask, and closed again by a cheeky grin.

An instant later, said grin was pressed clumsily to my nose, and despite his usual lack of grace, he pulled back looking just as smug as before.

I raised my finger to the tip of my nose, still moist with his breath, as the tip of my shoe was moist with pickled cabbage.

“Now who’s red, Partner?”

* * *

 

Yosuke walked me home today.

“Hey Partner, wait up!”

He hopped over to me and leaned against the door frame.

“What’s up?” I glanced at his lips, then met his eyes again.

“I wanted to ask you about something,” he said. I nodded as we exited the building.

“Sure.” I slipped my hand into my pocket, my fingers fiddling with the key to my uncle’s house.

“This is gonna sound weird, but…” Yosuke paused, scratching his head and shifting his hair around as we started walking away from the school. “Do you have a favorite color?”

My face fell into a tiny frown and he chuckled at himself, tugging at the cord of his headphones.

“Sorry, that was a stupid thing to ask,” Yosuke blurted out before I could answer. “I mean, of course you have a favorite color. Everyone has a favorite color.” He took a deep breath and started again. “What I meant to say is, we’re partners, you know? So we should know this stuff about each other, right?”

“I… I guess?”

“Sorry, this is… urgh!” He shuffled his hair again, and somehow none of it seemed out of place when he dropped his hands to his sides. “I’m not trying to make this awkward, but you’re really like, my first best friend, you know?”

“Best friend, huh…” I said aloud to myself, eyes on the riverbank.

“Not to get mushy or anything, but… well, yeah.”

I looked back at Yosuke. He was blushing, and rubbing his nose a bit, but I caught a glimpse of him smiling before his head whipped around.

“Shoot. I think I missed my turn.”

“You wanna go back?”

He checked his watch and shook his head.

“Nah. Maybe I can sneak a peek at your room.”

“Another thing you oughta know?”

“Well, _yeah_ ,” Yosuke said, his cheer returning. “So c’mon, tell me,” he paused to elbow my side. “What color’s your fave?”

I pushed out a small smile of my own. After letting my eyes wander from his hair to his headphones, to his collar, and back to his grin, I answered.

“I have a soft spot for orange.”

* * *

 

Yosuke took me to the movies today.

He’d invited me to see a movie with his favorite comedian in it, and I agreed.

I agreed.

I sat next to him in the back of a crowded theater, gripping the arms of my seat with twitchy, sweat-soaked fingers, watching what I assumed (what I hoped) was fake blood spraying across rickety floorboards as I realized too late that I shouldn’t have agreed.

Yosuke leaned over, his eyes still on the screen.

“This isn’t really what I’d pictured when they said he’d be in it,” he muttered, arms and legs crossed, looking just as annoyed as he sounded.

“Uh-huh.”

“I thought it’d be, you know, funny.”

“Uh-huh.”

“I’m gonna go get more soda. You want anything?”

“Uh-huh.”

He turned to me, looked me over, blinked once, then twice, and cleared his throat. He stretched his arms up, glanced around, and as he brought them down, he halted to look me over again. The arm hovering over my shoulders found its way to my side instead, and his hand slipped under mine.

Between the screams and scares, my mind spared a thought to worry about the sweat on my palms.

“But I mean, I’m not really _that_ thirsty,” Yosuke said, not really looking at me or the movie or anything.

The couple sitting in front of us shot him a dirty look. He coughed, then whispered to me, “Geez, they’re scarier than the movie.”

I laughed. I was still nervous and tense, but I laughed. And he laughed. And the couple rolled their eyes at us.

* * *

 

Yosuke invited me over today.

‘To study’ he’d said in front of Yukiko and Chie at school and his parents when we arrived at his house, but we ended up going through his music collection instead. We were sitting on his bed, and he had CDs and vinyls spread over the space between us. I picked up one of the records and flipped it over.

“You like that band?”

“My parents have this record.”

“They have good taste,” Yosuke winked at me, but I was too distracted by the memory of being told not to touch the copy in my father’s study to appreciate Yosuke’s face just then. My expression must have shown it, because he asked, “You alright, dude?”

“Yeah,” I lied. “I can’t believe you have a record player.”

I hid my bitterness behind a thin smile and scanned the track list more out of spite than curiosity.

“They’re pretty standard these days. You know, for people who are serious about music.”

“You mean hipsters?”

“Shut up, man,” he said, giving me a light punch on the shoulder. Then he leaned in close enough to make my heart leap into my throat. “Don’t tell anyone, but this used to be my mom’s.”

He pulled back, and I swallowed in an effort to put my heart back where it was supposed to be.

“Uh, yeah. Safe with me.”

“Had to beg her not to sell it when we moved. I lost some dignity that day. Gained a sweet player though. Wanna listen?”

“Sure.”

I handed him the record, and he hopped off the bed to put it on.

“What’s your favorite song on this album?”

I shrugged.

“I’ve never heard it before.”

Yosuke turned back to me, looking like I’d insulted his mother instead of his music.

“Your parents never played it for you?”

“Nope.”

I rubbed the ghost pain from my shoulder.

“What a waste. Why’d they even buy it if they weren’t gonna listen to it?”

“I’m sure they did in their younger years.”

Yosuke placed the needle on the record.

“I guess this band is a bit too rebellious for adults to appreciate.”

After a few seconds the music shattered the crackling static. I jumped, but Yosuke didn’t seem to see it.

“Not what I expected to hear from a relic.”

“What? You think they didn’t know how to jam back then?”

“Musicians? Or my parents?”

Yosuke laughed and rubbed his nose.

“Yeah, I don’t know much about your parents, but they don’t seem like the types to like this stuff.”

I looked at the floor, trying to replace thoughts of my parents by taking inventory of the laundry strewn about.

“So what music do you like?” he asked. I brought my attention back to Yosuke.

“I listen to a little of everything.”

Yosuke joined me back on the bed, this time sitting next to me instead of across the sea of discs.

“Don’t give me that, man. What’s your favorite? Your go-to?”

He was sitting too close and I was concentrating on his lips instead of the question. He put his hand on my knee and I jolted.

“You don’t have to think so hard about it,” he said, rubbing my knee. “I won’t judge, promise.”

“I like a good horn section.”

“Yeah?” Yosuke leaned in and threw his arm around me. “Like ska? Jazz?”

I nodded, and a warmth filled my face as he pulled me closer.

“Swing,” I breathed into his neck with the air my lungs had left. His arm slid down to my waist. I lifted my eyes, and to my relief, he was just as red as I was.

“You’ll have to show me next time I’m at your place,” he said to the ceiling, his voice cracking halfway through. I smiled to myself and nodded against his shoulder, then wrapped an arm around him.

“Only if you’ll dance with me.”

* * *

 

Yosuke saved me today.

Yosuke was at my back, and the others had disappeared. The battle had already taken its toll on all of us, and we’d been separated by fallen structures and flying debris. I knew they were there though, because of the occasional too close thunder, the way my wounds would spark back to health, and Rise’s static fizzling in and out of my mind.

But between us and them were five shadows demanding our attention.

“Hey, Partner?”

His back was pressed against mine. From his headphones I could hear a peppy idol song that didn’t match the situation or my previous impression of his musical tastes.

“Yeah?”

Yosuke was tapping his foot to it.

“Is there a plan?”

Cute.

“Plan?”

Distracting.

“So that’s a no then?”

An enemy launched a bolt at us. I called Izanagi to take the brunt of it as we split to dodge. Our backs met again behind my persona. Yosuke brought his arms back into a defensive stance, keeping his kunai close to his chest.

“Wait for them to make a move?”

“Yeah.”

Yosuke started tapping his foot again. The idol droned on about love feeling like popcorn. I tightened my grip on my sword and for a moment, my eyes wandering over the enemies, I pondered whether love and popcorn actually had that much in common. Yosuke kept tapping. _Pop, pop, pop, pop, pop_ , I thought. Izanagi glanced at me. I gave my persona a nervous smile. My own foot started to tap too, I noticed, before Yosuke was pushing me down into the dirt as something rusty shot over us.

“They made a move!” he told me, already rising back to his feet. He offered me his hand. I blinked, then took it. He pulled me up, and as our teammates rushed to our aid and Yukiko set the five shadows aflame, I hoped they couldn’t see the way I was blushing.

* * *

 

Yosuke carried me today.

Kou came up to me during lunch, saying that the soccer team was short on players. I took a deep breath and nodded, unable to say no to his desperate pleading. I’d had plans after school, but…

‘Had,’ was the keyword, I realized, as Yosuke, head hung low between his shoulders, joined me after Kou walked away.

“They get you, too?”

“Yeah.”

I put a hand on Yosuke’s shoulder and offered him a smile when he raised his head. He matched it easily.

“We’ll just have to hit up Aiya a little later then, I guess.”

After class we met on the field with the rest of the team, dressed in borrowed jerseys that had a distinct musk that came with months in storage. The other team arrived, and soon after, the game began.

The first half went quickly, and even through my heavy breaths I was grateful that this was nothing compared to all the running we did in the TV world. The TV world, however, did not train us to aim with our feet, and neither I nor Yosuke had done anything to close the gap between the opponent’s score and our own.

Apparently entertaining the same train of thought, Yosuke found the breath to utter to me, “They shoulda asked Chie.”

“Missed opportunity.”

“You’re telling me.”

Yosuke took his water bottle and chugged about half it down before offering it to me as he wiped a stray drop from his chin. I accepted it.

As I put it to my lips, Yosuke leaned on my shoulder and pointed to Kou and Daisuke on the other side of the bench, laughing as they patted each other’s butts and sprayed each other with their water bottles.

“They just do that in front of everybody?”

“It’s an athlete thing,” I said, with a shrug weighed down by Yosuke’s arm.

“I don’t know, man. Don’t you think they’re kinda… you know?”

I took a long drink from Yosuke’s bottle, silently debating whether or not to bring up our indirect kiss just now, or our direct one a few weeks ago. Ultimately, I chose to hand him back an empty bottle and run back to the field.

“Dude! This was supposed to last me the whole game!”

Fifteen minutes later, I found myself thinking the same thing about my ankle as someone’s cleats slashed through its side. I fell to the ground, seething over my bloody sock, holding back a bitter smile over my own joke.

The player at fault knelt down and apologized. Yosuke rushed to my side, asking me if I was okay and fretting over my ankle.

“Should’ve asked Yukiko, too,” I said, trying to smile more naturally. Yosuke managed a nervous laugh, then waved over Daisuke and the health volunteer. It wasn’t long before they were wrapping my injury and asking if I needed an ambulance.

“I’ve had worse,” I said, just then noticing the way Yosuke was glaring at the guy from the other team. It passed quickly though, and soon he was hovering over me again.

“Can you stand?”

“Probably.”

I was joking, but he scooped me up like I was nothing. My arms shot around his neck before I realized he had no trouble carrying me. I blushed while I wondered when he’d gotten so strong, then cleared my throat and leaned back into his arms as he carried me back to the bench.

“Hey Yosuke.”

“Yeah, Partner?”

“That just now. Wouldn’t you say that was kinda… you know?”

Face stained red, he turned away, and bounced me in what I think was a gentle threat to shut me up. It worked better than I’d like to admit. 

* * *

 

Yosuke slept at my place last night.

We were sitting at the table in my uncle’s living room. Yosuke was coloring with Nanako. I was searching the box for crayons with absurd names, half of which I’m fairly sure the two of them made up to mess with me.

The news was on and my uncle wasn’t home yet, and I was thankful Yosuke was here to help me distract my cousin from that fact.

“Can I get a Sorbet Delight, Partner?”

“Sounds dirty.”

Nanako’s eyebrows pressed together above her nose.

“Pink’s dirty?”

I coughed and turned away.

“Nah, pink’s good. Don’t worry about it.”

Yosuke laughed and leaned back, hands on the floor.

“Pink? I was hoping for more of a like, lime sorbet.”

I dug through the crayons again and pulled out a shade of light green.

“I have, uh, Margarita?” I frowned at it, then looked up at Yosuke. “Are these really children’s colors?”

“I don’t know, man. Everything has strange names these days.” Yosuke leaned in close and placed a hand on my shoulder, then said in a hushed voice, “That’s how they get you to buy it. The name adds to the mystery.”

My gaze slowly wandered back to the crayon in my hand.

“An impenetrable enigma.”

“Uh… sure.”

“Big bro?” I lifted my eyes to Nanako, and remaining at my shoulder, Yosuke did the same. “What’s an enigma?”

“It’s another word for mystery.”

“Ooooooh.” Nanako nodded. “What about in… inpen…”

“Impenetrable?”

“Yeah, that one!”

I shared a glance with Yosuke and rubbed my neck.

“It’s, uh…”

Yosuke made a circle with his thumb and index finger, then mimed his other index finger bouncing off an invisible barrier.

“Like this.”

Nanako nodded again.

“And penetrable is like—”

I gripped Yosuke’s shoulder with all the weight of my responsibilities as an older brother. They were heavy enough to steal the voice from his throat and the color from his face.

“A-anyway.” The words jolted out of him as his voice returned. “It’s gotta be Lime Sorbet Delight, Partner. I won’t accept any imitations.”

Yosuke gave me a nervous wink, though his other eye was pleading for forgiveness. I released him. He rolled his shoulder and stretched his arm, trying to laugh it off, but still looking a little pale. Nanako watched us with a confused frown.

“You’re really serious about green, huh?” she said more than asked, looking disappointed more than curious. I started raking through the crayons again.

“Well, yeah. It’s the color of like, grass? And trees? It’s a real serious color, you know?”

As he was saying that, my uncle came through the door with a bag in his hand.

“Hey,” he said to us, then nodded to Yosuke as he took off his shoes. “I brought dinner, but I didn’t know we’d have an extra.”

“It’s alright, we already ate,” I told him.

“I’ll put yours in the fridge then.”

“Thanks.”

Yosuke and I cleared the crayons from the living room table to make room for their meal. Nanako took them back to her room and my uncle sat with us.

“Thanks for taking care of her. I know it’s hard on her with me working late all the time.”

“No problem.”

“Yeah, it’s no big deal. She’s a good kid.” Yosuke crossed his arms and tilted his head. “Knows her colors.”

“Better than I do,” I added.

“Is that so?” My uncle laughed. “Well, thanks.”

Nanako returned, and the two of them shared their meal. My uncle asked us about school, and we told him what we could. Nanako talked about her friends and my uncle complained about Adachi. Yosuke and I finished off what Nanako couldn’t eat. It was our fault anyway; we’d shared our food with her earlier.

“He’s really not that great of a cop, is he? I mean, it seems like he spends more time at Junes than working.”

“Maybe you’re a suspect,” I said. Yosuke gave me a soft punch in the shoulder and took a bite of Nanako’s chicken.

“C’mon, you know I haven’t done anything suspicious.”

I considered telling Yosuke that jumping into the large TV in the electronics section was highly suspicious, but decided against it. My uncle sighed.

“The thing with Adachi is—he could be, you know?” He leaned on the table and tapped his finger against it. “If he just…”

He paused to mull over it, brows knit together.

“Nah, I get it,” Yosuke said. “He’s kind of a weirdo.”

My uncle looked at Yosuke, but didn’t say anything. He had that judging look in his eye, like he was deliberating whether it was worth arguing with his nephew’s friend. Then again, as a detective, he sized up a lot of people with those hard eyes.

I lowered my eyes to Nanako’s empty plate on the table before me.

As if sensing the mood, Nanako volunteered to clean up and took the plates from us.

“I think it’s probably time for me and Nanako to go to bed.”

My uncle rose to his feet and walked toward the kitchen to help Nanako. I hesitated, then clenched my fist and turned around.

“Can Yosuke stay the night?”

My uncle stopped and turned to me. I couldn’t meet his eyes to know if he was sizing me up, too.

“Yeah, that’s fine,” he said. “The extra futon’s in the closet.” He started to turn around again, but then stopped. “And I know it’s a weekend, but don’t stay up too late, okay?”

“Got it.”

“Thanks!” Yosuke said. My uncle was already at the stairs with Nanako, and only gave him a tired wave in response.

Nanako was quick to give us a cheerful “Good night!” as she disappeared up the stairway. I wished her one back, and then returned my attention to the table.

“Are we gonna head up to your room, or…?”

I lifted my head and turned to Yosuke, who was pointing at the stairs.

“I mean, that’s like, where all the fun stuff is,” he continued with a grin. “Now that Nanako took the crayons and all.”

I forced a smile back at him and nodded. We got up, turned off the living room lights as we headed upstairs, and made our way to the closet for the futon. Yosuke looked over the closet door, giving it a full once over, and then doing it again.

“Something wrong with the door?”

“No, but—Do we really need this?” Then, as if flipping a switch, within the same breath, “You have a couch.”

Yosuke shifted his weight from one foot to the other, looking at them rather than me.

“Do you want to sleep on the couch?”

Yosuke didn’t answer, but instead crossed his arms and shifted back to the other foot, making a face at the door that was really similar to the face he’d made in class when we received our stack of summer homework. I watched him for a bit, and then pinched him.

“Ow, hey! What was that for?”

“You’re never this quiet.”

“Yeah, well—” Yosuke started, rubbing his side, then he jolted his head back up. “What’s that supposed to mean?”

I rubbed my neck and turned away, very poorly hiding my smile.

“I guess you’re right,” he said, uncrossing his arms. “How is your couch anyway?”

“Not great.”

Yosuke opened the closet and took out the futon.

We went to my room, and he laid it out next to mine. We spent the next couple of hours talking about the things we couldn’t bring up at the dinner table, playing a handheld game Yosuke had brought with him, and blatantly disregarding my uncle’s advice to go to bed at a decent time.

We drifted off in each other’s futons.

We awoke in each other’s arms.

* * *

 

Yosuke made an ass of himself today.

It was meant to be a training day, but there were three muscular shadows just around the corner, and all of us were running low on energy. I was about to ask Yukiko and Teddie how confident they felt about their remaining healing abilities when Yosuke opened his mouth.

“Maybe we should let Kanji take ‘em.” Yosuke turned to Kanji with a smirk and wagged his kunai at him. “I mean, you’re into that kinda stuff, right?”

A second passed, but it felt like an eternity. A wordless eternity that had wiped my mind clean of anything I could have said to salvage the situation.

Chie started to scold Yosuke in a whisper, but it was cut short when Kanji, hands still in his pockets, leaned over Yosuke, reminding him and the rest of us how small my partner was in comparison.

“What? Like your kink for me whippin’ your ass?”

Yosuke peered up at him. He flinched when Kanji stepped toward him, but he held his ground.

“It was just a joke, dude—” My brain finding my nerves again, I grabbed Yosuke’s wrist and pulled it back. “Ow—Hey! Partner, what the hell?”

Yosuke looked at me, confused, hurt, like I’d betrayed him somehow.

“Listen, Senpai. I dunno know what your deal is, but I ain’t gonna keep takin’ this shit from you.”

“Like I said, it was just—”

“A joke?” I asked, louder than I’d meant to. Yosuke whipped his head around to look at me. His eyes went wide, and his jaw fell slack.

As my grip went limp around Yosuke’s wrist, the others pushed and pulled at the two of us.

“They’re coming toward us, you guys! We gotta go!”

“Fear not, for I, Teddie, will—”

“Teddie, just shut up and do it!”

Teddie’s persona appeared above us briefly, and then a bright light expanded over us. When it disappeared, we were back at the main landing, standing in front of the stack of exit televisions.

The others, maybe having sensed it, left quietly. The girls hushed Teddie as they corralled him to the exit. Kanji gave me a nod, and I nodded back, before he jumped back to the real world. The look he gave Yosuke, I think, was disappointment.

My hands fell to my sides, where I clenched them tight as my mind tried to pick out the right thing to say, or at least filter out the worst things to say. The words were all moving too fast though, and when Yosuke reached for my shoulder they burst out of me like vomit.

“A joke?” I asked him again, my voice cracking beneath the weight of the word. Yosuke opened his mouth, but for the first time, I didn’t let him speak. “This was all a joke to you? This whole time? When you kissed me, was that just a joke?”

“What? No, I—”

“And every time you held my hand? Was that all—”

My voiced kept growing louder, even though I didn’t want it to, so I bit my tongue to stop it. Too hard, too late, my tongue and my fists and my heart ached. Though I didn’t say them, the words kept swirling around my head making it so I couldn’t think.

Yosuke. I think he said something.

I don’t know.

I picked up my sword and left.

* * *

 

Yosuke wasn’t there today.

He said he had to work, according to Chie, but none of us had seen him on our way to the food court. I knew he used that excuse sometimes, when he really didn’t want to be somewhere. I couldn’t blame him. I almost didn’t come either.

Teddie hadn’t come, but he really was working, and would have followed us if a persistent customer hadn’t stopped him.

We each took out our study materials and spread them out on the table.

The next hour passed slowly. It was quiet without the usual playful banter. After finishing my literature homework, I lifted my head and looked around the table. Rise and Kanji were huddled over Naoto’s notes, and they were the only ones studying. Chie had been staring at the same sheet of paper since we started. Yukiko was… doodling? Was she done already?

I looked down at my textbook and chewed my lip for a moment, then turned back to Chie.

“Do you want some help?”

Chie jumped, then laughed at herself.

“Oh, this? Nah, it’s fine!” she said. “I… got this.”

Yukiko leaned over.

“Are you sure, Chie? You’ve been looking at that page for an hour.”

Ah.

She said it.

“No, no, really. I got this.” Chie crossed her arms, but couldn’t bring her face to match. “I do. Really.”

“Really?” I said.

“Really.”

“Really?” Yukiko said.

“Really!”

“Really?” Naoto said flatly, glaring at the three of us. We quickly directed our attention back to our homework.

Five minutes later, Chie was shuffling her hair and groaning.

“This is so stupid!” She stood up and pointed at me. “Make up with Yosuke already!”

She had the attention of the whole table now. Yukiko was clapping. Kanji tapped her shoulder and shook his head, and she stopped.

“I…” I blinked, then lifted my gaze from Chie’s finger to her face. “Excuse me?”

“It’s been like two weeks! I thought you guys were best friends.”

I blinked again.

“So…?”

“Nah, man,” Kanji said, pointing at me with his pencil. “She’s got a point. The team hasn’t got anything done since you two stopped talkin’.”

“He’s right.” Naoto nodded. “The case has been at a standstill, and training has been less than productive.”

I remembered our last excursion in the TV, and suddenly I couldn’t look at them. I rubbed my shoulder, thinking of the completely avoidable scar under my shirt and the matching one I knew Yosuke had on his arm.

“And everything’s been so gloomy since then, too!” Rise added, standing up. “We need him.”

Chie redirected her finger at Rise.

“What she said!”

Yukiko nodded in agreement.

I closed my eyes, then took a deep breath and let it out slowly through my nose.

“I’ll talk to him,” I sighed. “Just give me some more time.”

* * *

 

Yosuke was here today.

But no one else was.

As I sat there alone at a table on the roof of Junes, with only Yosuke standing before me, I realized I’d been tricked. Judging by the way Yosuke was fidgeting with his work apron, he’d been tricked, too.

“I guess they wanna make us talk, huh?” he said.

“Looks like it.”

Yosuke took a deep breath and sat beside me. He played with his fingernails, staring at them with an uncomfortable frown all the while. I kept my hands folded together too tightly on the table, rubbing my knuckle with my thumb, slightly annoyed that the others had seen through the way I’d been putting this off.

“They tell you we need to make up, too?”

“Yeah. And then send you a text saying everyone was gonna meet up to discuss the case today?”

“Yep.”

“Typical.”

We sat there a while longer, watching the people go by with their food.

“I’m sorry.” Yosuke stopped picking at his nails and tapped the table. “What I said back there, that was stupid, okay?”

I watched and waited. Feeling my eyes on him, he looked down at his hand and tapped faster.

“I don’t know what I was thinking. That it was different, I guess? Since he’s like, you know…”

“Like us?”

“But he’s not!”

I felt my anger start to well up again, rising from my gut and making my hands ball up into fists.

“He’s like, out, or whatever? And he’s accepted it. He’s not like us at all!”

Just like that, my anger was gone.

“But I guess if I keep yelling about it in the food court that’ll change pretty quick, huh?”

“I guess.”

Yosuke sighed and pulled a small set of headphones from his apron.

“You’re allowed to have those at work?”

“No, but I need a hit.” He winked at me, and I managed to smile back.

“Like an addict.”

He didn’t deny it, just put the headphones around his neck and pressed play.

“Would it be different?” I asked. “If we were like him?”

Yosuke leaned on the table and rested his chin in his hands.

“People would say that crap to us, too, huh? And avoid us, like they avoid him. He just doesn’t care what people think, though, you know? I’m kinda jealous.”

I looked down at my hands.

“Yosuke,” I began, rubbing my knuckles again. “Are you ashamed of us?”

There was a short silence, and then he took a shaky breath.

“A little, I guess. I mean, not you. Mostly just me.”

I waited for him to continue.

“Like, wanting to kiss your best friend all the time and stuff? That’s not normal.” He laughed bitterly. “I guess I got lucky to have a best friend like you who doesn’t mind.” Another breath, and then, “I never told you this, but that first time I kissed you, that… that was kind of like, an accident. At first it felt really good, but when we got back to class, I kept thinking, ‘He probably thinks I’m some kind of creep.’”

“I didn’t.”

“Well, _yeah_. I know that _now_.” He bumped me gently with his shoulder. “But like, I still worry about everyone else. Like, what would they think, you know?”

“I think,” I said, taking a breath. “They’d think ‘At least they’re not fighting anymore.’”

Thankfully, Yosuke laughed.

“So you’re saying their opinions are the only ones we should worry about, huh?”

“Something like that.”

“Maybe you’re right.” Yosuke laid his arms on the table. “And I mean, they accepted Kanji, right? So we’re practically in the clear.”

“If you apologize to him.”

“Yeah, I know.” He sighed, but then perked up afterward. “Hey, so, um, Partner?”

“Yeah?”

“About… about all this, like... I wanna, like… take the first step to not caring.”

I raised my eyebrows.

“Alright.”

“Okay so...” Yosuke paused, then pulled off his headphones. “Would it be okay if I kissed you?”

I stared at him while my heart clogged up my throat.

“Dude, please say something. You’re making me nervous.”

My face was hot.

“Right now?”

“Yeah, that’s… that’s kind of the point.”

His complexion was the same shade as the sunset, and maybe it was just the sun behind his hair, but I could have sworn he was glowing.

I’d be lying, if I said I didn’t have any worries, or if I said I didn’t care what others thought of us, but just then, seeing him in front of me like that, offering everything he could, it all made those thoughts seem so insignificant.

“I think I’d like that.”

He leaned in close, placing his hands and his headphones over my ears. As our foreheads touched, a trumpet was belting out an old swing ballad, drowning out the store’s noise. His hands, already at the sides of my face, slid down, cupping my jaw. I could feel his breath against my face, and losing myself to the feeling, I closed my eyes as our lips met, and I melted into him.

My hands grasped his shirt, his hair, and pulled him closer. One of his found my waist, and did the same to me. One kiss turned into two, three, until they blurred together and I couldn’t count them anymore. Until the only things in my mind were him and the brass playing in my ears. Until the sun fell below the horizon and the nighttime chill began to set in, but it didn’t matter because I was wrapped in his heat. Until his father came and peeled him off of me, scolding him for fooling around when he should have been back on the clock twenty minutes ago.

* * *

 

After what happened, Yosuke was, as he liked to put it, ‘grounded for life.’

Though I doubted the accuracy of his phrasing, I couldn’t exactly wait for a figurative or literal lifetime to pass, so with some determination and help from a certain tall, strong friend, I started breaking and entering the Hanamura household through Yosuke’s bedroom window on a fairly regular basis.

“I am so glad you apologized to Kanji.”

“Man, me too.” Yosuke helped me into his room and shut the window. “I can’t believe you’re still doing this.”

“Yeah, well, you know. Anything for you.” I smoothed my shirt and patted the dust from it. “You up for an outing tonight?”

“A jailbreak, huh?” he asked with his trademark wink. “What’s your plan?”

“Head to the riverbank. Spend some quality time under the stars. Just you, me, and the fish.”

“Anything’s better than being stuck here. Dad’s been a total hardass ever since he caught us.”

I smiled bashfully as I recalled the image of Yosuke getting pulled to the elevator by his ear.

“He’s only mad because you were on the clock, right? Not, you know, because it was me?”

“I don’t know.” Yosuke put his arms behind his head. “He seems to like you, but he gets all weird when I call you my boyfriend.”

I shrugged.

“Could be worse.”

“Yeah, he could find out you’ve been doing this the whole time. Then we’d really be screwed.”

I let out a nervous laugh and glanced at the bedroom door.

“So…” Yosuke said, scratching the back of his head. “Anything you wanna do until my parents go to bed?”

I approached him and pushed his hair back behind his ear. A futile effort, given the way it fell back into place, but it was worth it for the way he smiled.

“I can think of a few things.”

“Yeah?”

I leaned in, and today, no one stopped us.

**Author's Note:**

> This fic might seem a bit familiar to some of you. (Or, rather, it will soon.)
> 
> I wanted to try writing something in the first person for this. I originally meant for it to be a lot more like journal entries of Yu/Souji keeping a record of his slow fall for his best friend, but, well. It turned out a little more like the Usual Souyo Business than I'd originally planned, but I dunno. I'm satisfied with it.
> 
> I hope you all like it too! 8D
> 
> A big thank you to Angevon and Zippyelly for proofreading this!


End file.
